


First Week of School, Six Months of Sobriety

by starryeyeddreamers



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Enjolras had a hard time in elementary school, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, the smallest references to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-25
Updated: 2013-09-25
Packaged: 2017-12-27 14:07:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starryeyeddreamers/pseuds/starryeyeddreamers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras comes home to find Grantaire hard at work. It devolves into a discussion about Enjolras' difficulty with elementary school, and Grantaire hits an important date.</p><p>It makes the smallest of sense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Week of School, Six Months of Sobriety

The sun had begun setting. The artist sketching from his seat on the thick windowsill seemed not to notice. There were thick smudges on the pads of his fingers and on the side of his hand. He wore a t-shirt worn thin from years of wear. His foot tapped incessantly on the wooden sill. The room was dark and growing darker by the minute. A chill had settled in the air from the open window. 

The front door swung open with a faint squeak. The apartment’s second resident appeared in the doorway, swinging a heavy bag on the table by the door with a jarring thud. He threw his keys in the dish with its partner and began shrugging off his vibrant coat in the swift motion. His eyes swept over the room, their gaze as intense as always. They softened as they took in the shadow of the man hunched over a sketchbook. The room was so dark and the man so motionless he appeared to be in tableau.

A soft smile accompanied by the slightest blush passed over the blond man’s face as he hung his coat on the hook. He shook his very recently shorn head minutely at his ridiculous reaction to his boyfriend of a year. He did not know why his stomach still felt a faint flutter when he saw the other man so deeply engrossed in something that he did not even notice things such as the sun setting, or his flatmate arriving home.  
Enjolras walked across the living room with care, despite knowing that not even a derailed freight train would disturb Grantaire when he got like this. 

He stopped short a mere foot in front of the man curled up on the sill. He reached a long arm and snapped the table lamp on with a click. There. That did it. Grantaire’s eyes blinked and his hands that had been scribbling and smudging with a fury more frequently seen in the young artist than before. When his eyes adjusted to the light, he gazed up at the man in front of him with confusion.

“Oh.” He rubbed at his eyes, remembering too late about the graphite covering his calloused hands. “Enjolras. Oh, where did the sun go?” He glanced out the window and shivered.

Enjolras sensing this, shrugged out of the hoodie he had on over a long sleeve t-shirt. He was all about layering. He laid it across his boyfriend’s wide shoulders. 

“It left about an hour ago.” A smile played on the tall man’s lips as Grantaire wrestled his arms into the green hoodie.  
“You shouldn’t have given me this, I’ll get smudges on it.” He grinned as he kept his eyes on his sketchbook, quickly flipping through the pages. He shut it and set it down on the sill beside him.

“Anything good today?” Grantaire began to shake his head, but stopped himself.

“Actually, yes.” Enjolras put an arm around Grantaire’s shoulders, nuzzling his head into the other man’s neck. 

“You must have, considering you didn’t even notice the temperature drop thirty degrees when the sun set, you silly artist types.” He whispered into Grantaire’s ear. 

“You’re one to talk, mister only ten more minutes.” He pressed an open palm to the side of Enjolras’ head, turning his own head and kissing the side of the blond’s forehead. “Is it really that cold out? Your cheeks are freezing.” 

Enjolras pressed a quick kiss to Grantaire’s neck before letting out a huff of a laugh. “You smell like the first week of elementary school.” He straightened and offered his slender hand to Grantaire’s large, grubby one, and pulled him to his feet as he closed his fingers around Grantaire’s.

Grantaire laughed and pulled him into a hug, wrapping his thick arms around Enjolras’ waist. “Good or bad?” He said with mirth in his voice.

“Both.” Enjolras stated with no inflection in his tone to give away his feelings.

“Somehow I think there’s a story in that answer.” He pressed a tender kiss to Enjolras’ neck, then began moving to his jaw. Enjolras pressed a kiss to his forehead and wrestled out of Grantaire’s iron grip, pulling the artist into the kitchen with a teasing look.

“You haven’t eaten, I presume.” Grantaire nodded, not willing to let Enjolras change the subject. “You’re really bringing new meaning to the term “starving artist”.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll make a stirfry if you just tell me what you were like in elementary school.” He turned to rifle through the fridge, releasing Enjolras’ hand with a grimace and a silent threat to not change the subject.

“I was a terror.” Enjolras, a sheepish look on his hidden face, stooped to drag out the frying pan and set it on the stove. 

“Of course you were.” Grantaire glanced at him over his shoulder as Grantaire pulled out a cutting board. “Still are, mind you.”

“Says the man trying to make out with me in the living room a minute ago.” 

“You’re a cute terror.” He shook his head. “A terror I want to put my hands on and…” But he was cut off my Enjolras coming up behind him and nipping his ear before strategically retreating.. “See.” Grantaire brandished a knife wildly as he moved his hands about as he always did when he spoke. “A terror.” 

“You should have scrubbed your hands better.” Enjolras laughed from his perch on the far end of the counter. “Honestly, how do you get so much lead on yourself.”  
Grantaire looked at his hands with his fingers splayed out in front of him. “Curse of being a lefty, I suppose.” He shrugged. “And I always use my fingers to blend.” He glanced back at Enjolras again with an indignant look. “I want a description of pre-pubescent Enjolras. Or I’ll call Combeferre. Or Courfeyrac, who’ll give much less flattering images than Combeferre will.”

“Fine.” Enjolras went to run his hands through his hair, still surprised when he was met with the soft fuzz of the undercut he had gotten the week prior. “I said both because I loved the first week of school. I loved new teachers who still called on me when I raised my hand. I loved how hopeful my parents were that maybe this year, I wouldn’t terrorize my teachers, and refuse to do my work.” He grimaced. “I was a terror.”

“I can image, eight year old Enjolras, bullying the poor lady fresh out of university.” He said with a quick grin thrown over his shoulder that quickly dimmed when he saw Enjolras playing absently with his hands. Grantaire put the knife down on the cutting board and crossed the room, taking Enjolras’ hands in his.

“I just wanted to learn. I was too much for everyone I guess.” Grantaire’s heart constricts at the image of his boyfriend as a child, being yelled at for being too outspoken. “My parents just wanted me to shut up and make some friends.” Grantaire urged him on with a nod. “But that first week of school, with new pencils and a new backpack, I don’t know, I felt like I wouldn’t fail all my subjects because I refused to do work if I didn’t know why we were doing it.”

“I smell like new pencils?”

“You do. You know I held back a year in fourth grade?”

“You? You who is currently working towards his masters?” Grantaire hated seeing Enjolras unsure about his words and rambling, that was Grantaire’s job. “It got better, yeah?”

“I met Combeferre my first week of my second round of fourth grade.” A ghost of a smile played on his face. “We sat next to each other. He calmed me, I suppose, talked me into doing my assignments.”

“Saint Combeferre from birth then?” Enjolras nodded. 

“We met Courfeyrac the first day of fifth grade.” He pulled Grantaire’s dirty hands to his mouth and kissed the back of his hand softly. “So the first week of school’s not all bad.” 

Grantaire returned to cutting up vegetables and they resumed happier chatter, Grantaire starting an argument about the current mayoral race to drive the forlorn look from his boyfriend’s face.

After dinner they curled around each other on the couch, Grantaire rubbing his rough hands on the soft fuzz on the side of Enjolras’ hair. “Never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad you hacked it off.” Enjolras smiled peacefully.

“It’s more convenient, gives thugs less to grab at rallies.” 

“You’re too pragmatic to be my boyfriend, you know that?” Enjolras nuzzled his face into Grantaire’s thigh.

“You’re too perfect to be mine.” He murmured against Grantaire’s leg.

“Literally no one but you has ever used that word to describe me.” The disbelief in his voice caused Enjolras to frown. 

“You don’t care if I get arrested, or forget to come to bed, you don’t mind my worst habits.” He pulled himself up, ending up sitting in Grantaire’s lap. “Your drawings are amazing, you’re secretly more passionate than even me. You’re so talented.” His brows furrowed at Grantaire’s indignant huff. “So yeah, you’re fucking perfect.” He reached up to press a chaste kiss to Grantaire’s lips.

“This got much more personal than our usual after dinner discussions, and quickly.” Enjolras just pulled him in closer and shut him up with a deeper kiss. He slid his hand down Grantaire’s stomach but stopped when he felt something in his pocket. He pulled it out and glanced down at the round disk with a pyramid on it and a large 6 on it. He pushed Grantaire back and held him at arm’s length. “Today’s the 12th.” His eyes widened and Grantaire ducked his head. “I’m an absolute idiot.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along.” Enjolras silenced him with a stern glance but then his look returned to one of confusion. He was trying to figure out how to word this in a way that wouldn’t send Grantaire out of the room like a skittish rabbit. “I can hear you thinking.” Grantaire teased in an almost acidic tone.

“You have changed so much.” Enjolras let out a deep breath. “and wow. I’m so proud of you, and I want you to know that.” He pushed Grantaire’s back onto the couch with himself on top. “Days like today, when I find you so engrossed by your art, they enrapture me Grantaire.” He kissed his boyfriend’s jaw quickly before Grantaire could end this conversation by enticing Enjolras into making out instead of this, what this was. “I fall more and more in love with you everyday, you know that.” Grantaire rolled his eyes but he nodded. Everyday it was getting easier to accept Enjolras’ “I love yous”, until eventually he knew he would believe each one. 

“I suppose.” It was Enjolras’ turn to roll his eyes.

“You suppose.” He growled, rolling his hips into Grantaire’s, earning him a soft moan. “I’m so proud of you, and I’m so sorry we didn’t do anything special tonight to celebrate.” He bit Grantaire’s neck softly, coming up to look into Grantaire’s eyes with a mischievous grin. “I knew you could do it, you’ve accomplished so much.” Grantaire knows this words of encouragement shouldn’t turn him on as much as they do, but he’s sure Enjolras could read a dishwasher instruction manual and he’d be aroused. 

“I can think of something special we can do.” Enjolras laughed but began working his hands under Grantaire’s shirt. 

“Shut up I’m trying to encourage you.”

“Blah, blah, sobriety, you’re so cool Grantaire, whatever, just fucking touch me already before my heart melts from all the mush you’re spewing.” 

“Shut up Grantaire.” But he had already pulled his own shirt off and was working on Grantaire’s. He kissed his mouth roughly, tugging on Grantaire’s thick hair.

“Ah, there he is.” Grantaire mumbled when Enjolras lowered his mouth to work on his boyfriend’s neck. “The absolute terror.” Enjolras let out a frustrated moan, and Grantaire finally put his hands on the other’s waist and was rewarded with a sharp nip to the throat and a low moan.


End file.
